God Bless Ye Merry Auld Acquaintance

How’s that for mixing titles.  I’m beginning to notice a trend as far as Christmases go: less get-togethers, less people. 

Mother’s inaanaks, however, defy said trend and have managed to produce even more Christmas beneficiaries.  Does ninanghood really extend to progeny?  It’s ridiculous; my mother isn’t even (baptism) godmother to many of them, and I’ve always thought married couples are the ones who ought to give gifts to their sponsors, not the other way around.  Put that in, less cash all around, I guess.  God bless our country.

Things still manage to be as hearty as ever, but not as fun as things used to be — old friends passed away, the next generation in their families weren’t as keen on keeping in touch.  Many friends are not in the country — Mr. Shuli, Dr.Tom, Ellie Punk’s Master, Amazing Cross-stitcher, they’re still out there.  Hope you guys have a merry year-ender. 

We have the surprises, of course.  I especially like the story of an American, a Pinoy, and a Chinese who were shipwrecked on an island. The American took charge: “I’ll build our shelter out of this ruined boat, and you guys find supplies.”  An hour later, the Pinoy came back with firewood, edible fruits, and some game.  Evening came and still no sign of the Chinese.  “I’ve finished our shelter, let’s go find him,” said the American.  “I think he went that way,” replied the Pinoy, pointing to a pathway heading to a woody area.  They took the small road and headed deeper into the thickness of the wilderness, when they came to a dead end.  The two companions heard a howl from a distance.  “I hope nothing bad happened to him,” said the Pinoy.  Suddenly, there was a rustling behind them.  Neither man had weapons, and the American, apprehensive, drew out his heavy-duty flashlight to use as a club if necessary.  Out of the shrubs jumped the Chinese, who yelled, “Supplies!”

Where were we?  Oh, surprises.  Surprises abound!  T2jim, however, hands down biggest surprise of the year.  All the best… and use the Force.

And back to the missing theme, this year’s noche buena features just the fab four… the little spud celebrates his first Christmas with Mama, Ahma, and Diko.  DSTS goes back to work (cue maudlin Martin Nievera Christmas songs).

Little Liempo wishes Papa a happy birthday come midnight and he misses their kagat pwet ritual very much. :.( 

Huzzahs!

What is it with this new upgrade for Internet Explorer?  It got blinged to Yahoo! Mail proportions and now I am browsing through the pages at non-mutant turtle pace?  Is IE attempting a Google — keeping track of things I go through?  But even when I turn off the page scanning things, it’s not speeding up.  The upgrade also seems to be messing up the Yahoo! Messenger and now the thing keeps disconnecting tuloy.  I know MSN is the messenger and browser after Bill Gates’s heart, but please… everyone knows Yahoo!’s emoticons are so much cuter.  Dare I check out Mozilla Firefox, as recommended by Google, the better to help it rank my pages, peer into my mail messages, and get more information about me for the moolah men and anything Big-Brother-ish?  It’s kind of a no-brainer because I NEED GOOGLE!

We now have the top ten things we liked so much as the holidays whizzed by that the seams just burst with happiness (among other things), and everyone was like the funny tapdancer with the umbrella on the street in the rain:

10.  Annual get-togethers.  You can always choose your friends, but you’re stuck with your relatives until you die, and my personal theory on relativity is it’s actually good for the soul in moderate dosages.  And thankfully, mine, though far from clinically normal, are cool in their own way… and picturing me in another set up — and still have me being me — is totally impossible. 

9.  The holiday foodfest.  I had cookies, rellenong bangus, pasta, barbecued chicken fillet, four flavors of Red Ribbon cake, ube, three flavors of ice cream, three kinds of salad, baked potato.  Missed out on anything porcine, super roasted, or my standard Mexican, but there’s always another time, I say.

8.  I know I mentioned holiday food, but Max Brenner deserves its own space.  A couple of days before I had to go back to work, the Automan and the Great Kiong dropped by to help DSTS with a little matter concerning insurance, after which they asked us to join them for a late dinner. The late dinner eventually relocated to a sipfest of really sinful chocolate at the Glorietta.  The guys recommended the suckao; a shot costs about PHP 200, and most of that went to the presentation, in which you get a small pitcher of cream, a small dish of your choice of chocolate bits, a metal spoon you scoop the chocolate and stir with that’s also your straw, and a cup you use to mix all that stuff in — it’s shaped like an aromatherapy oil burner and has a tiny candle below to melt the stuff with.  The DIY thing was half the fun, and the ambience complemented the phermoney feeling nicely.  It is a kind of high; note happy feelings and cholesterol level. 

And to permanently seal its brand in my heart even if I’m not used to consuming chocolate in concentrated quantities, Max Brenner gets the savvy marketing down pat, from spinning this story about “Max the Bald Man” and his love story lovingly detailed with chocolate — a fairy tale, really, as the brand is actually a composite of the names of Max Fichter and Oded Brenner, business partners from Israel who thought up of the whole thing — to the slyly witty catchphrases, the chocolate showcases, “hug mugs” for the hot cocoas, and the bald waiters.  I think it’s at par with the efforts of Apple and Moleskine, and should get nominated at lovemarks — these things puzzle the practical DSTS and I know they’re hawking mostly baloney… but they’re working baloneys.  So bravo, Max Brenner.  You had me at ‘Suck’.

7.  DSTS’s dynamic duo were my heroes once again when they decided to drink lots of coffee — for I don’t know how long — and managed to get enough points to snag me a Starbucks 2007 planner!  How cool is that?  And I mean, sure, I know zilch about the finer art of drinking coffee, because I laid off drinking the stuff after the one spastic episode I drank a normal cuppa at a Century hotel and then my left eyelid would not stop this crazy tic for two days!  I think I’m good with the soupy instant coffees, but the brewed ones really get me, and make ‘em either way, I don’t have the taste for them, anyway (er, tea is more my bag?  Hee.). But the planner is so boss!  And it’s so pretty!  Smooth paper works well with any kind of pen I use and the graphics that are fun but fully functional at work.  Helps charity, too.  Again, thank you very much, guys.

6.  My stash.  To start with, I received cool clothes, and the women in the hayouse got Total Effects from the favorite brother himself, which is just wild right after the Twilight Zone theme wore off!  And just in time for my wrinkles from this year’s konsumisyons, too!  I raided comicbook, book, and magazine collections that bred in my absence, and I also scored new books that are heavy and I can’t take with me, darnit.  Really love this year’s haul, thank you Great Kindred.

5.  Mr. Shuli’s Christmas card.  He writes short messages, but they’re well-chosen words that totally make their mark and pitch tons into the holiday cheer.  And the super journalist, who I first met at kindergarten, never fails to do this every year!  Hope to see you when you pass by again, dude, and looking forward to your current events, too (wink, wink). 

4.  Yes, I mentioned some items under my stash, but like the chocolate, this one deserves a separate billing!  Absolute Kingdom Come!  DSTS is so my favorite husband in the whole world!  Can you believe it, Alex Ross pages like, A3-sized!?  With sketches!  And comments!  Not as cool as the comments and notes in Wizard’s special issue on KIngdom Come in 1996, of course — can’t mess with the censors for the book — but comments nonetheless!  And, like the other books, I cannot lug it back with me!  Aargh!

3.  Friends.  In the ways of the visionary paragons, live long and prosper.

2.  Family — accept no substitutes, and I got to hang out with them again.

1.  DSTS, the original chairman of the Justice League who at turns encourages, challenges, annoys, and inspires me every day — and I wouldn’t have things any other way.  And have I mentioned he’s my favorite husband in the whole world?  Well, he is.  My favorite husband in the whole world.  Nobody (but my favorite husband in the whole world) can send me the way my favorite husband in the whole world does.

And bring it on, 2007.

Bahs.

We have top ten things we did not like as the holidays whizzed by:

10.  Traffic congestion.  Nobody wins whether we snag rides or commute.  And this from me… I actually like commuting!  I can sit still for long periods thinking about what I don’t like to do or whiling time away with a book, Aunt’s back issues of Newsweek, or notebook and pen — I think I got carried away with the idea of using long, hot journeys to contemplate life’s purpose.  So romantic and something you can do perfectly nowadays on an LRT train, a jeepney, or a bus… if you don’t stop to think about how the girl on your right is sweating profusely and her whole upper arm is touching yours, or how the guy on the left is slashing your bag for real na (and you cannot do this on a taxi as you need to give the driver directions most of the time and watch for funny things from the meter during the first ten minutes).

9.  Godchildren who passed their 18th year ages ago and have successfully spawned versions of themselves who happen to possess kinetic abilities of Taz, but still invade personal space to ferociously claim pamaskos at their ripe, old age!  And times 26, because they brought their kids, their sisters’ kids, and their neighbor’s brother-in-law’s nephew’s cousin!  I do get the sponsoring people thing to guide them to a good Christian life, and it’s actually a good idea, you guys?  But I’m assuming this is not exactly helping with the desired moral trajectories.  Said inaanaks are some of our our mom’s, ‘kay, and if any of mine grow up with such blatant displays of bad manners, I shall not even deign to go along with pretending to ponder on the dilemma of the unattainable Christmas sandwich spreads (winner of the year’s Tactical Sob Generator Award).  I shall, however, be wielding a taser with a reach of at least three meters… or something even better.

8.  A downturn in sales.  At work, at home, at friends’, at the malls.  It’s even at Divisoria (insert your favorite "You should see Divisoria back in our day" story here).  An establishment with a special place in my heart, the National Bookstore on Avenida (not too upscale, near the LRT and a Chowking, and with tenured clerks who still insist on pronouncing the genre as "es-PIE-on-AGE"), compressed the top floor space of the Stationery building to make room for obsolete books!

7.  Gift wrapping.  I confess and like our mom said, "Bagsak ako sa loh-tsok."

6.  Less time spent with friends — many were, like, waaay out there — who had things to do and I had things to do.  The world would be much simpler if at least one of our friends was an all sorts of doctors, one of them was a travel agent who can fix all kinds of stuff while moonlighting as a lawyer or a senator, and one of them was a superhero with killer BAMF! abilities. 

5.  Less days spent at my Mom’s place.  New home for me, which I like… but I haven’t been around much and I still miss home a lot.  It’s so childish but true and thus will be expressed in the theme-writing style of yore: 

The whiney dogs… the occasional neighborly melodrama… the DVDs… our books!  I miss them.  I hope this feeling will not last… because it is sad.  J.A.P.A.N.

4.  Speaking of number 5, I did NOT get to watch T2jim’s Grey’s Anatomy collection.  Widely rumored to be conjugal property.

3.  Squeezing through the throng at government offices to get the stuff you need.  They need WHAT?  Who invented the NSO during the Dark Ages?  How come it doesn’t automatically put people’s records in?  Don’t we have computers now?  How come we don’t have our IDs?  Like not being listed on the NSO was our fault?  Who invented the NSO during the Dark Ages?  I kept going on like this because I tend to procrastinate and go in circles, until DSTS pushed me and we resorted to Lomafication.

2.  Securing accumulated doctors’ appointments while on holiday leave, during which many doctors are also on holiday leave.  Note to find younger professionals with zeal intact.

1.  Airplane trips. ‘Tis the season, and they suck in more ways than one.

It wasn’t all bad, though, the good stuff up next.  Now if the Internet connection at staff quarters would quit the OAs already.

Cold, Red Incense, And Blur

Many Western cultures, including countries that once were under Western rule, celebrate Christmas to honor peace and goodwill to humankind. 

Originally, though, these nations were among the cultures who practiced polytheistic religions that more or less resembled and sprung from the Indo-European culture, which pervaded in Mesopotamia, Assyria, India, and all the way to Norway, Gaul, Greece, Rome, and other European countries in antiquity.  This explains why the gods in mythology sometimes resembled one another in function (i.e. Odin, Zeus, and Jupiter; Venus, Cybele, and Freya; Isis, Kali, and Kwannon).  Egyptian gods are also similar except for roles of some male and female deities that were reversed compared to those in most other cultures, earning ancient Egyptians a reputation that they did everything backwards.

It has been said from the great deserts sprang forth three great monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  Islam and Judaism pray to one God only; Islam may have the prophet Mohammed, but he is not one Moslems pray to or worship.  In contrast, Roman Catholic faithfuls practice praying to patron saints in addition to the one true God.  Given it was originally transited from a polytheistic religion, and minor deities evolved to names of minor ‘saints’ to aid ‘conversion’ while retaining the deitic identities for the originally pagan races.

There are other Christian groups who do not observe the worship of saints.  However, they also recognize the belief in the Holy Trinity — Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, which is a comparatively more complex attempt to understand the one true God, and an essential component to Christian worship, including Roman Catholicism.  It is why I think, technically, and if you prefer to take things literally, the genuinely monotheistic religions today are only two: Islam and Judaism.

After the concept of Christianity was integrated into the existing Indo-European, polytheistic cultures as imposed gradually by leader of the vast empire, Constantine the Great.  The Christmas day we know was picked by the Roman Catholic Church.  In addition to the fact that Romans used transposition for their saints and feast days, the Jewish people also use an entirely different system for their calendar.  Therefore it is not likely December 25 is the exact commemorative date for the birth of the man we know as the Christ.  Christmas was originally a holiday celebrated in the West to honor Tammuz, the Indo-European deity identified with cyclical regeneration (he dies!  He lives again!), whose ‘mythic’ life integrates a love story with romantically suicidal self-castration!  If you check medieval holidays, there are other days with pagan origins most of which, like Christmas, evolved into Christian celebrations such as The Summer Solstice, Carnivale, Easter, Halloween, Martinmas, the Advent, Michaelmas, and Candlemas.

Islam does not celebrate Christmas, or even honor Christ as the deliverer of the People as Christ is descended from family patriarchs that, technically, cheated Ishmael from his birthright to Abraham’s clan, and Moslems believe Mohammed is the prophet who showed the people the Way.

The Jews, however, also don’t celebrate Christmas.  For one, they have not determined that Jesus is the Messiah.  The Jews were expecting the Messiah as a King as glorious as David, not someone who died, and then had the death interpreted as someone who ‘died for the sins’ of all, including Gentiles.  Secondly, if you check the books, most accounts of Jesus have not been actually detailed by Jesus himself, but by people who witnessed Jesus and his works. 

The most notable deviation from the traditional Jewish faith is the way life should be lived according to the records and letters written by the apostle Paul.  His philosophy talked of salvation for all — not only people of the faith, but including Gentiles, or the traditional heathens who did not observe customs dictated by God and recorded in the Torah.  It is also interesting that Paul and Jesus Christ never met; the apostle said he was inspired by the Holy Ghost to eventually convert from a consistent Christian persecutor to a Christian champion.  Perhaps these are reasons that contribute to doubts regarding Jesus as the true Messiah in Jewish tradition.

A slice of history that partially explains some of the great divides that we can never fully understand… but December 25 serves well to call many nations to remember peace and love and family and friends, at least once a year.  Merry Christmas to all.

                                                                           *****

DSTS, recovering from a fever, is still sniffling, and yet there he is with a mug of ice cream.  Great, man.  We headed off his day with an earlier visit to a church, a temple and mad rush visits to elders to pay respects to before they head off to their holidays with family and friends.  It’s like the Amazing Race, only we have no allowance from Phil and it’s hell to commute now.  Next week I’ll be lining up for government paperwork.  Hopefully some offices are still functional?  And I just realized I’ve been home for a week!  With a new SIM card!  And I haven’t received a phone call from the Bat Phone!

Okay… should I be thankful, or expect a dark cloud of foreboding looming over my head?

PS — Three cheers for the Liempo, now older and infinitely wiser.

Absolutely No Place Like It

One cold day in December, DSTS harrumphed and proclaimed, “By George, Jillybean, dark sister of Dune, forsooth thine and mine non-refundable ticket left for this moon.  Shouldst we tarry and hie ourselves home?”  It’s the end of the year and we’re behind quota but what the heck, most everyone else were going away, anyway.  Insanity must be catching.  So I agreed… we shouldst.

Alas, the flight home did not end with me going home directly to my toasty nooks in the Tobacco House of lupang tinubuan, the better to take care of leftover work.  Going home went about several days later, and after those several days we still needed to check in between for stuff and more stuff.  Manila’s not the best option but there we were.  It’s noisy, it’s loaded with annoying strangers who may mug you, but it’s been like a second home since I was three years old.  And until I leave for Poor, Poor Village again, I am happy.  In my own way.  Really. 

Work cleaved to us for the first for days — there were these assessments, and e-mail, and visa, and catalog, and style guide, and durnit, can’t I just leave these and not worry about getting sacked in January.  There went the teeniest chance to see the Goblet Of Fire film in which they removed Winky, Dobby, and Rita Skeeter in a jar.

That Metro Manila Film Festival is a sneaky thing.  You know what happened to ensure I do not ignore it?  They have Mulawin the Movie.  It’s a sequel thingie where Aguiluz and Alwina somehow get separated again.  Now we see a scene with Alwina waking up in… Lireo!  Why, that’s semi-wimpy Amihan!  And Pirena is still EBIL!  GAWD!  Now I have to think about moving with the throng just because my campy favorites have parts in that movie. 

Because of all the work since the episode where Danaya turned into a rat, I missed the rest of Encantadia.  But I am satisfied with the ending helpfully narrated by Dozer_021 in which Pirena returns to take her place with her sisters after getting Imaw’s staff (dirty!) to see the truth behind all the, er… paglilinlangs.  The best part was all those annoying Starstruck characters DIED!  Including Lira!  Mua-ha-ha!  And now Danaya gets to become queen and even Pirena agrees.  So there.

Not to disappoint me for ending may favorite best-dressed objects of snark, we’re now presented with a prequel-sequel called Etheria.  The writers are now mining the He-Man/She-ra compendium.  Etheria revolves around Cassiopeia’s prediction when she was a teen that when the last sanggre is born, a previously defeated, warlike race called Etherians will come back to defeat the peaceful fairies (who propagated the age of Encantadia).  Which is a hoot, because Lira died, she didn’t have a kid at all.  But Cassiopeia must’ve heard about Dolly and took a hair from Lira to clone the last sanggre.  Isn’t that like, cheating, just because you foretold the key was the last sanggre and she died?  And the actor who played the younger Cassiopeia speaks straight Tagalog.  Beats me how she grew up to have Cindy Kurleto’s accent.  Wha-… Cassiopeia is the half sister of Queen Dawn!  And Queen Dawn was half-Etherian!  Queen Dawn’s name is Mine-a!  But Cassiopeia is the rightful Queen!  The first!  And Mine-a will be the Second!  Okay, that makes Amihan just the third and Danaya the fourth.  Empire’s kinda young, and its future might be handed over to a clone from Lira’s hair?  Which is played by that pretty Starstruck kid who plays creepy characters on movies and TV shows.  And there’s a Sex Bomb dancer modeled after the legend of Atlanta!  Just my luck… costumes still look great.  How the heck can I subaybay this series, hum?

My family and DSTS’s mom are fans of Jewel In The Palace.  It’s a TV Koreanovela that was popular in most Asia based on a historical character who was revered as a female physician.  But she started off as a great royal cook.  I watched it and it is interesting… kind of like a cross between MacGyver, Eat Drink Man Woman, Knots Landing, and a chapter of world history.

Speaking of food, I already had relleno, ice cream cake, bibingka, and sisig.  Here’s to getting some more.

Also attended a couple of family gatherings and a wedding of two friends who’ve been together since college graduation.  The traffic was horrible (we didn’t make the ceremony after spending a couple of hours on just two main intersecting avenues), but Bai and Yayis, you guys looked great.  Tata, Em, and Dony… where were you guys? 

Dynamic Noyce introduces a new guy who seems nice.  Hoping for the best, girl, I think he’s okay.  Intrepid Cath’s just as frustrated as I am on the guy-being-dependent-on-the-girl-for-directions-when-they’re-together-and-driving thing.  I hope to try and squeeze in more get togethers with friends if I can, I really miss talking with y’all while I’m stuck over there.  Believe me… only you guys understand that my semi-autism is not such a bad thing.  Sorry, you get no prize.  ‘Cause we’re tight.  Aight?  Getting into the spirit of the holidays, I hope we’re still rocking even when Friendster becomes holographic. 

DSTS is The Punisher on his birthday.  I’m just saying, it’s fine to help other people, but don’t push it, man.  As of today, cruising is off-limits (watched some CSI lately?).

Finally rewrote the blog entry, I Did, which disappeared about two months ago for who knows why.  Not the same as the original, but there you go.  Some Friendster-endorsed blog writers talk of the same thing happening in their blogs.  Anybody osmosising and fixing this yet or do we resort to propagating bulletin chain letters in faux Latin, just lemme know.

I guess in spite of everything I do NOT welcome to be with me on this vacation but do tolerate out of what goodness that’s left in my heart… it’s really great to be home in December.